The Schuylkill 16 Week 12: Boxed in

I'm working on Philly.com's sports desk, which means that for yet another night I'm not at any games. But at least I'm still employed, which counts for something from what I can tell.

To make up for it, you can follow all of tonight's action via our live stats pages.

Here are tonight's City Six results:

- at Villanova 90, Notre Dame 72
- at Charlotte 74, Temple 64 (ahem)
- Massachusetts 87, at Saint Joseph's 80
- La Salle 80, at Fordham 73
- Drexel 61, at Northeastern 48 (ahem again)

Other games with Schuylkill 16 teams include:

- Illinois 77, at Penn State 67
- at Bucknell 81, Lehigh 76 (OT)
- Lafayette 77, at Army 68
- at George Mason 77, Delaware 66

Also, since it's Wednesday, that means it's time for the latest edition of the Schuylkill 16. The biggest news is that St. Joe's has jumped from eighth place into a tie for fourth after beating Dayton.

Can the Hawks keep up their momentum against UMass tonight?

1. Villanova, 16 points (14 first-place votes)
- "Is this their best team ever?  Rafal Bigus would beg to differ." (Rob Falcone)

2. Temple, 29 points (1 first-place vote)
- "Temple proved to be the class of the A-10 with its win over Xavier." (Joe McNamara)

3. La Salle, 58 points
- "That Big 5 game against Penn must have looked like the "free square" on a bingo board to LaSalle." (Brian Ewart)

t-4. Drexel, 81 points
- "Having no conference wins is embarrassing at this point, so out of principle I'm voting Drexel at #4." (Brian Ewart)

t-4. Saint Joseph's, 81 points
- "St. Joes won't make the tournament and may not qualify for those other tournaments that nobody watches. But they beat Dayton this week, and that's better than anything Penn State has done." (Brian Ewart)

6. Penn State, 101 points
- "By blowing a 16-point second half lead to Wisconsin in a devastating loss on Saturday, the Nittany Lions rose up a spot in my rankings." (Mario Machi)
- "My Nittany Lions are slipping down the Schuylkill faster than a scull on steroids" (Timothy AumAn)

7. Rutgers, 114 points (1 last-place vote)

8. Princeton 118 points (1 last-place vote)
- "In a stunning turn of events, Princeton blew out Goucher. What's next? A Democrat-controlled Congress?" (Brian Ewart)

9. Rider, 130 points
- "Rider picked up a nice road win against underachieving Niagara." (Joe McNamara)

10. Lehigh, 145 points
- "It's telling that Pomeroy projects the entire Patriot League to have between five and nine conference wins." (Brian O'Neill)

11. Lafayette, 153 points
- "Lafayette's loss to Lehigh surprised me.  The regular season title will probably come down to their rematch." (Brian O'Neill)

12. Delaware, 180 points

13. Monmouth, 191 points
- "The Hawks could realistically have the fourth or fifth most conference wins in this field. At worst they'll have five more than Rutgers." (Jeff Shafer)

14. Bucknell, 200 points (1 last-place vote)

15. Delaware State, 206 points
- "That loss to Morgan State, while expected, definitely hurts Delaware State's chances in the MEAC." (Brian O'Neill)

16. Penn, 237 points (11 last-place votes)
- "My favorite rollout from Monday night: "Last home win at the Palestra: 3.1.09 SJU 73, SBU 62". Get it together, Quakers." (Brian O'Neill)
- "Give the crowd what they want, Jerome Allen. Play Malcolm Washington more." (Mario Machi)

And finally...

- "Never in a million years did I think I would see the day where a basketball game at the Palestra wasn't big enough for Tannenwald but was still big enough for Denzel. But sure enough, last Wednesday night there was Denzel taking in Penn-LaSalle like a true fan. And Tannenwald was nowhere to be found? Maybe he was eating caviar at a Liacorus Center luxury suite for Temple-Xavier. I don't know. But don't forget your roots Tannenwald. You are the Palestra. You eat braided soft pretzels at the Palestra. They have some openings on that plaque in the concourse with area sportswriters... acting like you're big-time and being too cool for Denzel Washington isn't the way to get your picture on that plaque." (Todd Falkenberg)

Penn State's women's team
- "I'm writing in the Penn State women 3rd. They are ranked, and none of the other S-16 mens teams deserve to be that high." (Brian O'Neill)
- "I'm back off the Kutztown bandwagon. This week I am putting the Penn State Women in my poll at #15 -- the highest ranked women's team in the region." (Brian Ewart)

Neumann-Goretti High School
- "While Kutztown drops from the write-in spot due to last week's loss to Mansfield, Neumann Goretti stays in my rankings by continuing to demolish the local high school competition." (Mario Machi)